
A-Level Film Studies teaching pack: Women Documentary Filmmakers
AVAILABLE FROM: Dr Hollie Price (h.price1@keele.ac.uk) or Professor Lizzie Thynne (l.thynne@sussex.ac.uk)
As part of the Jill Craigie: Film Pioneer project, we’ve compiled a pack exploring the work of women documentary filmmakers for A-Level Film Studies teachers. The pack provides extension activities and resources for teaching Section B: Documentary Film on the WJEC Eduqas specification and has been developed in collaboration with teachers.
The pack contains clips and timecodes, discussion points and extension activities designed to provide context for the study of women documentary film-makers on the A level WJEC Eduqas specification but should be of value to other Film and Media Studies courses. The resource focuses on Sarah Polley, Clio Barnard and Kim Longinotto.
We place the work of these contemporary directors in the context of our research on pioneering film-maker, Jill Craigie, and feature extracts from our new biopic, Independent Miss Craigie (Lizzie Thynne, 2021).
Online materials for independent learning or home schooling are included as well as further reading and viewing. Teaching materials focus on the following three themes:
Life Stories
Aim: Learners gain knowledge of women filmmakers, biography and approaches to documentary – as context for studying Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012) [or alternatively The Arbor]
Documentary/Fiction
Aim: Learners gain knowledge of the history of British documentary filmmaking – as context for studying The Arbor (Clio Barnard, 2010), focusing on its blurring of boundaries between documentary and fiction
Women’s Rights
Aims: Learners gain knowledge of the history of women’s rights and feminist documentary filmmaking in Britain – as context for studying Sisters in Law (Kim Longinotto, 2005) and Longinotto’s approaches to documentary
Please write to Dr Hollie Price (h.price1@keele.ac.uk) or Professor Lizzie Thynne (l.thynne@sussex.ac.uk) if you would like to receive a copy of the pack with the accompanying film extracts from Independent Miss Craigie.
We would value your feedback on these resources and your experience of using the clips and activities in class. It would be very much appreciated if you could fill in the following survey based on your experiences – we’d love to hear from you.
https://forms.gle/ZiaucDRkDJn7AcEG7
We hope the pack proves useful in your teaching about women’s film history!
Jill Craigie’s scrapbook for her film Out of Chaos (1944) LSE Women’s Library
Jill Craigie Project: Online Public Talks and Discussions
Independent Miss Craigie, keynote presentation, introduction and q and a with Hollie Price and Lizzie Thynne, Chair: Melanie Williams, British Assoication of Film and Television Studies Conference 2021
Independent Miss Craigie, discussion with Lizzie Thynne, Penny Woolcock and Ros Cranston Chair: Selina Robertson, part of the ‘Cinema of Ideas’ series by the Independent Cinema, 2021
‘Jill Craigie: Documentary, Realism and Histories of British Cinema’, Seminar presentation for the University of Southampton by Yvonne Tasker, Chair: Shelley Cobb
Independent Miss Craigie – Discussion with Hollie Price and Lizzie Thynne, part of the series ‘Out of the Archives’ by Four Corners, London, 2021
Independent Miss Craigie: Screen Studies Research in a Pandemic, 3-day online training event, University of London Screen Studies Group 2020. Lizzie Thynne discusses the process of developing the project and the film; Hollie Price discusses her approach to her archival research for the project and the role of post-doctoral research fellow.